Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show! -- The Q and the Gray

CHARACTER
I admit that I have almost too much to say about this episode, and so I warn you you're in for a lot of Q talk. In fact, one almost needs Internet omnipotence to know which topic should be addressed first, and I'm afraid any such claims on my part might just get you-know-who to come in here and turn me into a Klabnean eel with bad hair.

In fact, there's an extremely good and extremely long and complicated essay, "QRules," by Atara Stein, that deals with Q's appearances on TNG and his relationship to Picard, and just trying to answer that would take up my entire upload space in AOL.

So let's just pick a topic and run with it. Several people, as I said before, are complaining that Q has been ruined by showing up on Voyager. The fact that he's interested in Janeway and SuzieQ and has a son, to such people, destroys his relationship with Picard, makes him look like a fool, and, well, pigeonholes his preferences in a "mundane" way. They point to Q actually deigning to talk to Paris and Kim as proof that he's being wasted (Q sometimes seems not to notice that anyone else lives on the Enterprise except Picard), and they claim that his dialogue is either 1) unfunny 2) too silly 3) no longer threatening enough 4) goonish 5) not something he would have said on TNG.

In short, Robin Hood and Sherwood Forrest, yes! Civil War, no!

Well, certainly if Q doesn't work for you because he's interested in having a son with his long-time Q companion, then so be it, and I'm sure Q fans everywhere have their fingers crossed that he will show up TNG-style in the next movie. But I can't help thinking that this rejection of the Voyager version of Q -- a version certainly different from TNG Q and (thank goodness) the DS9 Q -- limits appreciation of the character. Q is immortal and semi-omnipotent and knows everything, can't he be interested in other stuff while he's waiting for his yearly visit with Picard? Can't he be interested in Janeway for precisely the reasons he gives without this "destroying" that his obvious obsession with Capt. Stuffy? Assuming the wooer's role does mean that Q does silly things, but this is hardly a first for him. A certain type of fairness calls for us to compare Q's second Voyager visit with his second TNG visit, and, speaking personally, I think "The Q and the Gray" is about a million times better than "Hide and Q" (where Q tried to make Riker a Q and got dragged off howling to the Continuum when he failed).

So it's not that we shouldn't compare the TNG Q with the Voyager Q -- how could we keep from doing it? It just seems to me that Q acts differently when he's not around Picard, responding to Janeway's very different sort of presence. There's nothing I can see that's inherently contradictory in Q's persona here from elsewhere. In fact, he seems to be continuing the trend towards maturity begun by his association with Picard. While Picard refuses to be Q's "father-confessor," Janeway's helping to steer that maturity in her own relentless mothering way. Q shows up, after all, looking for a mother, and in many ways, that's just what Janeway gives him: a mother to tell him what it means to be a parent, to steer him towards a proper mate, and finally take the "official" role as BabyQ's godmother, something I think Q means quite seriously, in his own way.

In fact, I think if we go ahead and indulge ourselves with further comparisons, something very interesting indeed begins to emmerge.

We have to start at the beginning to see it. When Q showed up at in TNG pilot, he was a total SOB. He froze people and called us a bunch of savages and put us all on trial. He didn't even have his now trademark cruel honesty down yet. The Q we really like so much didn't get going until he "helped" humanity by introducing Picard and company to the Borg, and we certainly didn't get to feel cozy with him until he lost his powers. But then, Q did the thing that really got people talking: he showed up in Picard's bed, seemed jealous of Vash, and in general began to seem possessive of Picard. When Q showed up in Picard's bed a second time, figuring out ways to bring Picard flowers, call him darling, and so on, people started debating just what Q wants from the captain, and some people have gotten, shall we say, very dedicated to a specific answer.

But there's no need to be so dedicated. People who don't like the idea of Q's being -- oh, pick your euphemism -- to Picard don't have to see the relationship in that light at all. Q is always coming on to people, getting in their space and making suggestive remarks. Janeway isn't pushing Picard out of even a remotely exclusive spot. Q was, in fact, "seducing" Riker with the power of the Q, and he acted like it. He was all over Amanda, and he even tried some extreme male bonding, mano-y-mano, with Sisko (which was a total disaster and Q never went to DS9 again, but that's another review).

In any event, Q's rather outrageous idiom works wonderfully well in contrast with Picard's super-reserved and yet oh-so-sexy (or powerful, if he's not your type) manner. Picard always manages to seem just a little tempted with ear-whispering Q, but it never gets too overt that it has to be only one thing. Therefore, the ambiguity creates power and controversy and fun.

Now, there's no question what Q is after from Janeway in this episode. I fail to see how he could be more obvious. In fact, his seduction technique is consciously over the top, filling the bridge with flowers and making that horrible bed! And so, with it all out in the open, so to speak, Janeway easily deals with it. There's no guessing games like Picard has to play, and so the tennis ball is in Janeway's court. She serves up the best solution (if you will) and everybody goes home happy.

And that, I should think, will be that. Even Q probably won't be hitting on "Auntie Kathy," his son's godmother. Where Picard may be an object of interest that gets colored by certain overtones, all overtones with Janeway have been stamped out. She's become a member of the family.

Picard needs someone to knock him off his pedestal, someone who is enough of a god to be right so that Captain Perfect can be wrong -- and still go on in the next episode to save humanity. Just as much, Janeway needs a friend outside the command structure. Someone she can't order around. A gossip partner or a drinking buddy. Someone who, like Guinan, can hold mysterious powers without a real threat. Janeway and Q can be what Picard and Q can never be: simple friends. As such, Janeway is no "competition" for Picard, but another part of his life. And if it isn't as interesting a part yet, let's see what happens when Kathy does have to baby-sit.

But it's not just Janeway's relationship with Q we get to watch here. Frankly, I don't see what people's problem with SuzieQ is, as she's fabulous. She looks great, I love hearing that voice again, and though I'm worried that once again, now that she's given birth to a son, she might be killed to leave the father to Raise the Child Alone (Worf would love to know I'm comparing him with Q, heh heh), I really think it's great they've finally decided to make use of Suzie Plakson again. Killing her off before was just about the stupidest thing they ever did, and this episode is proof: the way she sneers with her whole body, the way she shares Q's snapping gesture but gives it her own style (a small sign of their interconnected lives), the way she drawls out "You, Helmboy!" and even the way she manages to look better than Janeway in that Civil War gown, all combine to make her almost as fun to watch as Q.

And as for her impact on Picard's role in Q's life, it never made sense to me that Q didn't have someone close in the Continuum, after we've had Star Trek painstakingly show us that every other race of beings out there has some sort of coupling procedure -- or at least, every interesting race of beings. Interestingly, she objects to Janeway not on the terms of sexuality, but on the terms of procreation. It's human DNA in the Continuum gene pool, and the humiliation of being "cast aside" that plague her. Since Picard doesn't really pose a reproductive threat to the Continuum, so I can't see her really caring about him one way or the other. He's just a mortal, after all. She probably thinks of all humanity as her beau's "little hobby."

Now, one of the reasons there's been so much complaining about "The Q and the Gray," is that many of the Q fans who are vocal in their displeasure are either writers or readers of the fanfic out there. People have had a long time to come up with opinions about how alone Q is (thus giving cause for his interest in humans), what an amorphous and competitive place the Continuum is, what a child Q himself is supposed to be, and so on. But it is the fate of fanfiction that it will sooner or later be replaced by canon. Much of this is severely trounced out by SuzieQ's existence, the extremely physical representation we get of the Continuum where even humans can manipulate Q power, and Q's assertion that he's at least five billion years old.

And it is at that middle point that I must admit I don't like everything about this episode.

The Civil War scenario is one of those things that looks good on paper and silly on screen. Anyone who reads my "Deathwish" review knows that I adore allegorical abstractions, but whenever I hear that Southern accent or see those uniforms, I cringe. Just how, I would like to know, are humans able to have any power in this place? So Paris puts on a cute little Yankee uniform and points a rifle at KFCQ and somehow this lets him hold him in his power. I just can't buy it. And that whole thing with the tents and the beans roasting over the fire and Janeway fixing up Q's wounds. How could that possibly help him? What power does she have to manipulate anything without his conscious (and he's unconscious part of the time) intervention?

Don't get me wrong. I get how it's "supposed" to work. But I just can't run with it.

On paper it is a little fun. It's interesting to note that Q, with his enormous ego, can't be honest with this representation of the Continuum. He is, in fact, the Southern Rebel, and the higher-ups are the Yankees. He uses his relationship with Janeway to make her his belle, however, and gets away with it.

Since I live below the Mason Dixon line, I must admit I wouldn't have minded seeing Q in a gray uniform, but that would have messed up the title. "The Q in the Gray" just doesn't have the same ring.

And it's also interesting to note that Q is making a valid point with his choice of abstractions. The American Civil War was a terrible time for the nation, and when Q brings Janeway to the window with the line, "The Continuum is burning," it evokes a powerful association with brother-against-brother, as well as questions about the nature of power, and all that. Moreover, as Q points out, the Civil War, as awful as it was, was also an incredibly important moment of change in the world. The Emancipation Proclamation was practically a side-effect to the enormous exercise of power of the North over the South, a demand that states did not have the right for "freedom and individuality," however much the people themselves did. While again this makes the choice of colors problematic, it validates Q's claim that war is a time of great change, and that this Continuum war is offering him an opportunity.

In addition, the use of the scenario almost masks Q's real model for change, hiding some of his enormous ego from Janeway. Q is playing God here to the point where he wants to create what he himself calls, a "messiah." He wants a Christ to go with his godhood, and Janeway is not so much Leda after all, but Mary.

Janeway sees through this, though, when she points out the many differences between Q's ridiculous idea that simply creating the child (or the Child) will do the trick. Perhaps Q has been hanging out with mortals too much. Among his own kind Q is no God. His "messiah" a really just a BabyQ, and will have to deal with his society not as a visitor from Heaven, but as a member of that society. Janeway is obviously, therefore, not the choice for mother; SuzieQ is.

And so I also like it that SuzieQ agrees readily with Q's proposal once he has sense enough to make it to her. Between the two of them, Janeway and SuzieQ take Q's delusions of godhood and domesticate them into something infinitely more practical, worthwhile, and useful.

And, I must say, it's a perfect role for Janeway. Since she first told Harry not to call her "sir," there's been an insistently maternal quality to her command. I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that in the early episodes this bothered me. I would say to myself, "Can't a woman be a leader without being a mother?"

But then I thought of how a strong male leader almost always seems paternal. Not Kirk, you say, and this is true with Spock and McCoy. But think about his roles with Chekov and that guy who panicked in "The Corbomite Maneuver" and Charlie X. He could be paternal when the situation called for it. Picard, of course, is paternal, and Sisko is actually a father, and uses a similar command style with Jake as with his crew. I hope don't really have to provide non-Star Trek examples here, and can just get away with saying that paternal authority figures abound everywhere.

So once I stopped seeing Janeway's mothering qualities as limiting, I could see that they make her all the fiercer in battle, all the better to guide her crew and community in this lonely sector of space, and all that much more all-around interesting. It's certainly not the type of motherhood we usually get to see on TV.

So though we may wonder why Q needs a mortal's advice on anything, we should remind ourselves of the subject matter. Q's appearances have often made clear the difference between knowing something and understanding it. Q knows all about procreation, but he doesn't understand what it means to have a child. Janeway makes just about everyone she knows her child, and was raised by parents who took a very active role in her childhood. The whole puppy thing seems to be a bit of sublimated motherhood, and both Paris and Torres reveal just what a good mother she can be. She seems infinitely qualified to tell Q what's what. And while there are some who doubtlessly prefer the all-knowing version of Q we saw in "Tapestry," that sort of thing can get old awfully quick. It's fun to have Q learn something. Maybe after he and Janeway are good at being friends, he can teach her something too. After all, Janeway herself has a tendency towards "knowing everything" that it would be fun to deflate from time to time.

As for Q's interaction with the others on the ship, his dealings with Chakotay are obvious alpha-male chest-thumping, which is why the "Mine's bigger...Not big enough" thing works so well. For a second, I half expected Q to get as distracted by Chakotay as he was by Vash, but, fortunately, I think, that doesn't happen.

His talk with Paris and Kim is primarily comic relief, as Q gets to describe his seduction techniques. He doesn't get much from them, but then, there's nothing to get. Neither officer knows anything about worming their way into Janeway's good graces, and so he lets them go and finds more suitable prey with Neelix. With the simple truth that Neelix does bribe Janeway with goodies, Q almost instantly gets what he wants to know. If Q had to work on Neelix at all, I'd think he was lowering himself, but instead the scene just makes it clear Q isn't above taking candy from a baby.

The most interesting surprise of the show is Q's own position in the Continuum. He's hardly the first rebel leader who first endured exile, and he seems to fit his role nicely, especially since there seems to be little that's special about the other Q. I mean, is KFCQ one of the guys Guinan called "respectable?" Boring old fusspot, more like.

So all in all, I'm looking forward to seeing Q on Voyager again. The possibilities, as Q might say, are limitless.

A quick note to finish this section: I like how Torres seems a bit surprised when the Starfleet officers applaud the supernova, but then joins in sincerely enough. It's another moment in her transition from Maquis engineer to Starfleet explorer.

THOUGHT
There's one other thing that constantly bothered me about this episode: Amanda. Q's claims that Q don't reproduce is patently contradicted by Amanda's existence. I do wish that Star Trek writers would remember that their audience has a tendency to remember past Trek episodes.

It's all the more annoying because the contradiction could have been handled instead of ignored. Q could have said that Q can only reproduce once their powers are taken away by the others, hardly an attractive prospect for Q. Or he could simply say he didn't want the uncertainty of whether his child would also be "true Q," or that he didn't want to wait eighteen years for his kid to develop. Something would have been nice!

SPECTACLE
Hmm, this episode gave me more stuff to love and hate looking at than just about any other Voyager has. I love the bed! I hate the Civil War uniforms! (Tuvok looks particularly lame.) I hate Q's holodeck outfit! I love that he's still wearing the combadge. I love Q's bathrobe! his tattoo! his looks of abject sincerity as he holds that puppy! I hate the Southern mansion! the firing squad! -- oh, and especially those jerky close-ups to Q and Janeway with the drum roll. Puh-lease!

And who told Q to wear sandals and dark socks? Not even an omnipotent super being (or the truly fabulous John de Lancie) can pull that off.